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[Update 20190127_200249 UTC: corrected number of downmods to qualify for mod bomb from 4 to 5. Clarified that no mod bans have been handed out in a long while. --martyb]
Our primary goal at SoylentNews is to provide a forum for the community; In as much as is reasonably possible, we try to take a hands-off approach.
The infrastructure provides a means by which the community can (among other things) vote on polls, publish journal articles, submit comments, and perform moderations.
There are, however, some things that require an active role by the admins.
One of these is dealing with moderation abuse, something which can come in different forms. See the FAQ for some background. Addressed there are "mod bombs" and "spam mods". A mod bomb is deemed to have happened when one user (user1) has performed 4 5 or more downmods against comments by another user (user2). Upon review, if a mod bomb has been found to occur, then the moderator (user1) gets a 1-month mod ban on the first occasion; 6 months on the second and subsequent times. Mod bans have not been issued in a LONG while; extra mods are reversed.
Sockpuppets: And now we come to the focus of this article: there is another form of moderation abuse: sockpuppet accounts. Wikipedia has a suitable description:
A sockpuppet is an online identity used for purposes of deception. The term, a reference to the manipulation of a simple hand puppet made from a sock, originally referred to a false identity assumed by a member of an Internet community who spoke to, or about, themselves while pretending to be another person.[1]
The term now includes other misleading uses of online identities, such as those created to praise, defend or support a person or organization,[2] to manipulate public opinion,[3] or to circumvent a suspension or ban from a website. A significant difference between the use of a pseudonym[4] and the creation of a sockpuppet is that the sockpuppet poses as an independent third-party unaffiliated with the puppeteer. Sockpuppets are unwelcome in many online communities and may be blocked.
Right here I'll admit that I was sorely tempted to take unilateral action. Name names. Apply mod bans. And... you get the idea. Instead, I'm trying to take the high road. So, instead, I chose to present what I found to the community, solicit input, and then see what, if anything, needs to be done.
There may well be other cases, but the one I have discovered shows this history of upmods. Out of the 100 most recent moderations performed by "user1", 80 of those have been upmods of the same user "user2". And of these, there have been 10 upmods on January 21, 10 more on January 22, and yet 10 more on January 23. (For those keeping score that is 30 points in 3 days).
I cannot imagine in any way that 30 upmods in three days by "user1" on "user2" is reasonable or desirable.
This would be purely academic except that comment moderation affects a user's karma. All registered users start with a karma of 0. Submitting a story that is accepted on the site earns 3 points. Each upmod to a comment of yours earns a point. Similarly, each downmod deducts a point from your karma. Get enough karma and when posting a comment you can give it extra visibility so that it starts at a score of 2 instead of at 1. (Comments posted anonymously or by ACs start at 0.) Get a low enough karma and you earn a "timeout" against posting comments for a month.
Inasmuch as "user1" was able to perform 80 upmods of "user2" in 19 days ("user2" had hovered near the karma cap of 50 when this all started), that means that "user2" received approximately 80 downmods from the community. Excluding the actions of our sockpuppet ("user1"), "user2" should have been in negative karma and thus in a month-long "timeout".
What I see is that the community has spoken (the comments posted by "user2" are not of the kind the community wants to see on the site) and that has been intentionally countered by the sockpuppet activity of "user1".
Rather than the admins taking a unilateral action, I am asking the community what should be done in this case (and any others like it that may come up)?
I offer a proposal that is analogous to our handling of a "mod bomb."
What is a mod bomb? Four (4) or more downmods in 24 hours by "user1" against comments posted by "user2". qualifies as a mod bomb and earns "user1" a 1-month moderation ban (initially; subsequent mod bombs earn a 6-month mod ban) It's been a long time since mod bans have been issued..
Proposed: Four (4) or more upmods in 24 hours should also be considered a mod bomb (sock bomb?) and should receive the same treatment.
The point of moderation is not to bestow karma points, it is to help improve the visibility of well-written comments and reduce the visibility of the lesser ones. The karma is simply an incentive to actually perform the moderations.
I've toyed with various values for number of upmods per unit of time (4 per day? 20 per week?) I keep coming back to the same metric we use for our existing "mod bomb" definition: 4 down mods in one 24-hour span that commences when mod points are handed out at 00:10 UTC.
So, now it's your turn. I'd appreciate your feedback and thoughts on this. If we should choose to implement it, it would probably have a soft launch with any "violations" being met with a warning.
Ultimately, it's your site. How do you want us to deal with sockpuppets?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by SunTzuWarmaster on Friday January 25 2019, @01:57PM (23 children)
I'm not sure what "max karma" is, but I think I'm there. 50?
Here's the thing though - I effectively have unlimited mod points. We get, what? 15/day? I have never tried to use moderation points and *not* had them. From my perspective, it seems infinite. My total moderation is probably 10/month.
As a neutral actor, I really don't care. I don't up/down vote very much. Also, apparently, I've both positively and negatively mod-bombed people. Every once in a while I see a good and well researched comment that I click on the users' history and see what *other* things they have said. If there are other insightful/interesting/funny things that they said in their last 10 posts, I'll mod 'em correctly. Similarly, sometimes I see something so staggeringly ignorant/wrong/unresearched that I think the person could have said other things in a similar category. I do my best to mod the ignorant jerk into oblivion (based on the content), if appropriate.
But here's the thing - what if I'm not a mostly-neutral actor? What if I'm a bad actor? What if I decide to try to turn my "unlimited points" into "people must listen when I speak" ? Well, here's a plan. Phase 1 is create 10 accounts. Phase 2 is use my points to upvote those accounts. Phase 3 is to have a primary account and just have all the other 10 accounts upvote me. This is pretty much enough to override any/all neutral actors (does anything ever get more than 15 total moderation actions?). It is not, however, enough to override even-more-bad-than-me actors.
The only way that I can see doing it, really, is to make it so that people don't have unlimited points (limit to, say, 2/week?). In this way, the Phase 1-3 plan takes ~4 months, rather than 4 days.
The other thing that you can do is try to balance it - "for every upvote, there must be a downvote" or equivalent system. However, the bad actors would just start randomly downvoting.
The other solution is the /. solution - you get mod points for metamoderation. I really don't like that solution, because I don't like metamoderating and don't do much of it. That said - "the users police themselves" is the only viable plan for long term scalability.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Friday January 25 2019, @02:25PM (10 children)
That's the art / slippery-slope of the situation: who decides what is neutral vs what is bad?
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by SunTzuWarmaster on Friday January 25 2019, @02:55PM (9 children)
Eh - I find it kinda hard to classify myself as a bad actor if I comprise a total of 10 actions/month. Perhaps, rather than "neutral actor", the description of "non actor" is more accurate.
Generally - I propose limiting individual actions. You don't want this site to turn into reddit (silence those with whom you disagree! unlimited accounts! unlimited up/down votes!). The general Slashdot limits seemed pretty okay:
1 - Moderation is harshly limited. I think it was a year before I got my first mod point? I kept getting "you only get 10 and you have to use them in the next 7 days" situations (don't care). There is so little moderation around here that I think a 5/month limit might be appropriate.
2 - Moderation is a reward for encouraged activity. You get mod points for contributing to discussions, meta-modding, and having articles approved. Maybe something like a you-get-1-point-for-every-point-someone-give-you system? 1 point for a comment being modded positive (-10 points for a comment going below 0?), 1 point per 5 meta/mods (10 if you do 10), and 20 points for an article? Meta-modding focused on the "-1" threshold?
3 - "Moderation is a privilege, not a right." You can only have mod points if you aren't an A-hole (new accounts don't get points, negative karma accounts don't get points).
In this way, you can't really sock-puppet (unless you have multiple accounts all doing metamoderation, contributing, and submitting... in which case GOOD!). You need to have accounts which contribute - then those contributions are rewarded.
At the same time, if you get 10 points/month and choose to spend 5 of them all on one person (either up or down) - good! I don't care about mod-bombing then. You can't mod a single comment more than once, so you have a 20% chance *at best* to influence an individual discussion. Further, let's say you do the "10 sock puppet accounts" thing - you spread your 10 points among the 10 accounts, then the following month you have 100 points under your control. You use them to upvote yourself in 10 places. Then the real community downvotes you, trashing your karma, stripping you of mod points, and calling into question your next post. I guess you still have 100 points available next month to get it back, but the system seems to correct pretty quickly.
The current system of effectively-unlimited points encourages bad actors and is creating the modbomb up/down problems. It just wouldn't be a problem if you didn't have points.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 25 2019, @03:35PM (6 children)
4 - Sell mod points: $100 membership gets you 10 mod points per day for a year.
(Score: 2) by SunTzuWarmaster on Friday January 25 2019, @04:50PM (5 children)
No disagreement here - you pay the server costs; you get more votes on what is on the servers.
(Score: 5, Funny) by RandomFactor on Saturday January 26 2019, @12:15AM (4 children)
I have it!!!
Lootboxes. Hear me out before downmodding this in a righteous fury.
$1 loot boxes - 1 roll (1 roll)
$5 loot boxes - 1 roll every day for a week (7 rolls total)
$20 loot boxes - 1 roll daily for 31 days
25% +2 mod pts/day for next week after opened
15% posts get automatic +1 for next 48 hours
15% posts get automatic +2 for next 24 hours
5% posts automatically start at level +3 for next 48 hours
5% Launch all Upmods - Upmods count double for 24hrs
5% Soylent but deadly - Downmods count double for 24 hrs
5% posts automatically start at level +4 for next 24 hours
5% One Post Immunity - can make one post permanently immune to downmods (except by site admins) (can be combined with +5 automatic post level)
5% OMG its full of mods - first mod on any soylentil in 24 hours doesn't cost a mod point
5% Can Upmod a post more than once
4% Can downmod a post more than once for 24 hours
1% Journtal News - Next Journal entry shown on the main page as if a news story (will have suitable disclaimer)
1% SoylenTeflon - Users posts are immune to downmods for 24 hrs after opening (except 'Soylent set us up the bomb' mods)
1% Soybling - Name displays with background highlight for a week
1% Soylently Saintly - Immune to all positive overmod bomb checks for one week. +5 mod points per day,
1% Soylent set us up the bomb - immune to downmod bomb effects for 48 hours AND +10 mod points
1% Soylentry Accepted - Can accept one submission from Queue (will have suitable disclaimer)
You may now downmod this idea into the oblivion it so richly deserves.
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 3, Touché) by SunTzuWarmaster on Saturday January 26 2019, @12:43AM (3 children)
First - that's awesome. You're now a 'friend', susceptible to random posi-bombs when I feel like it (2x/year).
Second, you left out some names. Can I do them? I'm going to do them.
25% SoylentDouble - +2 mod pts/day for next week after opened
15% SoylentMushroom - posts get automatic +1 for next 48 hours
15% SoylentFireball - posts get automatic +2 for next 24 hours
5% SoylentCape - posts automatically start at level +3 for next 48 hours
5% SoylentStar - posts automatically start at level +4 for next 24 hours
5% BulletproofLentil - can make one post permanently immune to downmods (except by site admins) (can be combined with +5 automatic post level)
5% SoylentCoupon - first mod on any soylentil in 24 hours doesn't cost a mod point
5% DoublePlusGood - Can Upmod a post more than once
4% UnDoublePlusGood - Can downmod a post more than once for 24 hours
1% ReadingMyDiary - Next Journal entry shown on the main page as if a news story (will have suitable disclaimer)
(Score: 2) by Hyper on Saturday January 26 2019, @12:46AM
Great guys, just add a bit where the user has to pay $1 to open the loot and we'll be covered for site upkeep forever.
(Score: 2) by RandomFactor on Sunday January 27 2019, @03:54AM (1 child)
Nice tweakage :-)
I have this cheerful vision of TMB screaming at the screen at the amount of coding that would be involved.
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 3, Touché) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday January 27 2019, @05:25AM
No worries about that. tl;dr
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday January 25 2019, @05:16PM (1 child)
Wait - - - WHAT?!?!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 25 2019, @08:50PM
Self-defense, one of the most basic of instincts. Even assholes have it!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 25 2019, @02:53PM (1 child)
don't mod old posts, and then you're safe.
I guess that's also easy to implement: if there have been no new comments on a story for the past week, no comments to that story can be modded in any way.
people can change their opinion. I know I did. so don't judge their entire life every time you come into contact with them, at least not for this particular type of discussion forum.
(Score: 2) by SunTzuWarmaster on Friday January 25 2019, @04:52PM
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Friday January 25 2019, @03:34PM (7 children)
Perhaps an automated "self-policing" system could be implemented?
Rather than caring that account X up/down modded account Y's comments a bunch, you compare their mods patterns with with the mods by the rest of the community. E.g. If I mod up a bunch of your posts, but nobody else does, or worse, most everybody else mods them down, then the odds are good that I'm a sock puppet trying to bolster your karma and visibility (or a member of a "mutual admiration circle", which is potentially just as bad)
Now there would be some risk of promoting groupthink moderation, but I think as long as you're looking for patterns where user1 is predominantly moderating user2 contrary to the opinion of the broader community, you could probably identify many/most mod-bombers without catching up more benevolent bulk modding (You tell me - how often do you end up downmodding a bunch of high-modded bull, rather than shoving someone a bit closer to oblivion?)
The possibly more difficult pattern to detect would be when user1 has a pack of sock-puppets all reinforcing each other...
Hmm, perhaps a two-stage system that first looks for systematic bias in who you mod - if most of your modding is to one person, or a small group of other people (for bolstering your other sockpuppets), then you're flagged as a suspected sock puppet. If your mods *also* strongly tend to disagree with the broader community (not counting other accounts flagged as suspected sock puppets), then it's considered confirmed.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by SunTzuWarmaster on Friday January 25 2019, @04:32PM (6 children)
To some extent, all communities are biased. But let's keep it real - this is a biased community. At best it is "nerds" (Star Wars/Trek good! Animated non-anime movies bad!). At worst it is alt-right libertarian technocracy. There is going to be a fair amount of circle-jerk generally. Any system which looks for systematic bias is going to come across it in a variety of ways.
That said, I probably consistently mod https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?noupdate=1&sid=29754&page=1&cid=791758#commentwrap
and
https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?noupdate=1&sid=29754&page=1&cid=791376#commentwrap [soylentnews.org]
Would be nega-bombed if they were associated with accounts. I like to think of it as that they "earned" a nega-bomb. Note that I would read the posts to make sure they were deserving, and they nearly always are. Negative contributions are rarely singular. I also like to think that people start to self-reflect a bit if they aren't allowed to talk. Maybe not the first time... but by the 10th... I occasionally try to peel the onion back a bit further to see if there is a situation of "people that disagree with this poster always seem to get insulted by AC", and punish the original poster as this behavior is pretty obvious.
Posi-bombs here are usually of the "of I forgot about that guy" nature. On Slashdot, when I had excess mod points, I would go and posi-bomb the people on my "friends" list. There was so much traffic on Slashdot that good posters were frequently simply overlooked. The type of person that I always tried to friend was the "Whoa, that guy did the math! Whoa, it looks like he does the math... a lot." The people on my friends list here don't seem to need my help, possibly simply due to less traffic. Leafing through my friends list reveals them all to have roughly 50% of their comments modded positive, with the occasional disagree/troll. I just investigated the disagree/troll modded comments w/in the last 60 days - moderation in those instances was correct and not needing my correction (they were wrong/offtopic and got modded as wrong/offtopic). No moderation performed. System working as intended.
I find it very irritating that, on Reddit, arguing with actual numbers and insight *never* seems to be upvoted. As an example, consider a couple of posts from me:
https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/ajey86/cmv_the_1_isnt_the_problem_its_the_00001/eevp2l8/?context=3 [reddit.com]
That post took >20 minutes to prepare and research and was in response to a general question. It has *3* upvotes. Someone disagreed with my math, I posted why I was right. They deleted their post (why?), and my correction has *0* upvotes. WTF? How the hell does the factually wrong and deleted post get more points than the factually right one?
https://www.reddit.com/r/IntellectualDarkWeb/comments/ah1mxa/a_cnn_analyst_called_out_a_fox_news_contributor/eesty1y/?context=3 [reddit.com]
That post took ~10 minutes to prepare, used facts, and invited discussion. It has *0* upvotes, even when posted to a circle-jerk community.
https://www.reddit.com/r/financialindependence/comments/ainuiy/should_i_hide_my_power_level_at_work/eeq0hh9/?context=3 [reddit.com]
That post has *8* upvotes in a thread where thousands of upvotes were floating around. It is to a financial independence forum and compares inflation rates against S&P500. It took ~10 minutes to prepare. The *provably factually inaccurate* disagreement had more upvotes.
PS - reddits' up/down vote system is TRASH and it BELONGS IN THE GARBAGE. Unfortunately, it is where a lot of good discussion happens nowadays, as long as it isn't political.
In an effort to prevent SN or Slashdot from turning into Reddit, activities like the above need to be rewarded. That said, it is easy to overlook that type of content (it is *always* a 2nd or 3rd level post). Posi-bombing users like that has two effects: 1) providing a modicum of incentive to continue, and 2) making it so that cream rises to the top. As far as I'm concerned, being able to posi-bomb "friends" is the *point* of having a friends list.
Further, I'd like to add that, in a town hall debate, some people are respectable and others are not. In a town hall debate, it is easy to see respectability (people defer to them, they dress nicely, they are articulate, etc.). It is ... harder on the internet to see which people are respectable. I'd like to think that a moderation system coupled with a friends system helps to bridge that gap a little bit.
Also note that I care more about the moderation system here more anything else.
I think the solution here is to simply limit the ability of individual users to shape the discussion. Maybe something like 1 mod/week? 10/day is enough that an individual user can shape entire discussions, and 10 individual group-thinkers can bury disagreement. Changing that number to simply be "10 individuals can shape a discussion, 100 individuals can bury disagreement" may be enough to limit abuse. It can be scaled up later by further restricting mod points across the community, and the roll-over makes it so that individuals can mod the heck out of an individual discussion on which they have expertise (a part of the mod system that I would like to keep).
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday January 25 2019, @04:56PM (3 children)
Is that a thing?
You cherry picked 3 personal examples out of potentially, what, billions?
Example 1 has score hidden still so we can't confirm. Probably it got lost among the 771 other comments.
Example 2 is bad since you came into the discussion 6 days late, when nobody is paying attention to it probably.
Example 3 is at +9-10, and includes another comment of yours at +17. Expecting hundreds or thousands of upvotes on your comment is probably unrealistic. I'm not sure which provably wrong comment you're referring to because I see score +5 for the comment you replied to. Reddit doesn't report real scores btw, they are offset by some amount as an anti-abuse tactic.
It's easy to find low scores you think are unjustified in any comment system. It just happens. There are various factors involved and not every comment can be a viral hit. I don't think you've proven that Plebbit vote system bad whatsoever, and over the past couple of years I have found myself wondering how Reddit's system could be better than our own. If we wanted to test it here, it could even be run in parallel: just keep the old system with moderation reasons, but with unlimited Agree/Disagree mods to produce user scores. Then compare to see if the "best" comments are getting consistently high scores, and vice versa.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 4, Interesting) by SunTzuWarmaster on Friday January 25 2019, @05:39PM (2 children)
3 examples in the last week. I have 5K karma on a 4 year old account, and have been gilded twice. According to this graph (http://puu.sh/AsOo3/1a46334ca4.png), that puts me in the top 20% of users by total karma. I'm a generally helpful guy. I've had 6 100+ karma posts, one of which was viral-ish at 700 upvotes. I've been modded-to-oblivion 23 times, primarily for making off-color jokes in the /r/jokes section (WTF?).
Reddit's system is really really good at getting the pageviews right - the things that show up in best/hot at things that people are talking about.
Reddit's system is truly awful at having good discourse. Consider this thread - https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/airguq/government_employees_that_voted_for_trump_what/?sort=top [reddit.com]
53K upvotes, nearly none of it for Trump supporters. Trump supporters, even when asked a direct question, were modded to oblivion.
Consider this answer - https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/airguq/government_employees_that_voted_for_trump_what/eeq9852 [reddit.com] - this user lost ~6 months of positive karma for answering the question that was asked in /r/askreddit. Note that I found that post by doing a "sort by controversial", so he is getting roughly as many upvotes as downvotes. There are almost certainly people at the bottom of "sort by best" whose opinions are just beyond saving, and were permanently punished for it.
The "chilling effect" there is substantial. You CANNOT say anything against the majority and preserve status. Note that negative karma accounts are essentially blocked in all of reddit due to the laziness of moderators. Also note that, even when moderators are not lazy, negative karma accounts are limited in abilities to the subreddit that they posted to. The user who got that negative karma blow for "I think the president is doing a fine job" will be subject to limitations in /r/askreddit essentially forever (he got more negative karma there in the last 2 days than I had on my entire account for 2 years). So it ends up being hard to just "have negative status". Note that I've been banned from a couple of places on reddit and I'm relatively uncontroversial.
Reddits' up/down vote system manages to simultaneously silence discussion, enforce mob rule and groupthink, and provides disincentive to thoughtfulness. It really is pretty awful. Every subreddit ends up being a circlejerk as a byproduct. Soylent/Slashdot have much better systems (capping max moderation up and down is really good in preventing groupthink, a user community which doesn't rally use moderation is another), but they are systems better suitted to a community which is smaller.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 25 2019, @09:28PM
Looking at his user info, he apparently purchased a "Reddit Premium" subscription this month. Maybe that will help avoid the consequences of negative karma.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 26 2019, @12:48AM
Groupthink
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 25 2019, @05:07PM (1 child)
So are you pissed off because *your* effort was not recognized? That's not something you can expect to happen anywhere. Here at SN, your post could have been down modded because someone didn't like what you said in order that others would be less likely to see it.
(Score: 2) by SunTzuWarmaster on Friday January 25 2019, @05:50PM
I don't expect to be recognized every time - but look at my posting history at here and slashdot. Generally, about 20% of my contributions are valued by the community. Probably about right - most of my contribution is neutral. Then look at reddit, where virtually none of my contributions are valued. They are the same contributions.
I'm not trying to win internet-points here, but the moderation system serves a few purposes:
1 - Make the site better for the reader/community. Reddit is really good about serving up good content. Soylent/Slashdot aren't as good. 4chan doesn't give a shit.
2 - Make the site better for the contributor. Slashdot/Soylent generally reward contributions. Reddit only rewards contributions in accordance with the groupthink (groupthink varies by subreddit). 4chan doesn't give a shit.
3 - Make the site better for the owner. Reddit is really really good at this. Slashdot/Soylent are bad at this. 4chan doesn't give a shit.
As a byproduct, you get Reddit Corporate overlords, Slashdot/Soylent community efforts, and 4chan doesn't give a shit.
If you want this to continue to be a community-driven site, it is important to focus on (2).
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday January 26 2019, @04:58AM (1 child)
Nah, the site's not big enough that we can't spot something like that if it's a regular occurrence. It's pretty easy to tell if someone's sock-puppeting and from which accounts. Anyone who routinely mods only one person, always the same way, and rarely if ever comments is probably a sock puppet.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Saturday January 26 2019, @09:06AM
So we have isolated The Mighty Buzzard as a sock-puppet of his own self? Interesting.